01940cam a22002657 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100002200070245013500092260006600227490004200293500001900335520083100354530006101185538007201246538003601318690008601354700001801440700002201458710004201480830007701522856003801599856003701637w18642NBER20161209222759.0161209s2012 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aAron-Dine, Aviva.14aThe RAND Health Insurance Experiment, Three Decades Laterh[electronic resource] /cAviva Aron-Dine, Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2012.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w18642 aDecember 2012.3 aWe re-present and re-examine the analysis from the famous RAND Health Insurance Experiment from the 1970s on the impact of consumer cost sharing in health insurance on medical spending. We begin by summarizing the experiment and its core findings in a manner that would be standard in the current age. We then examine potential threats to the validity of a causal interpretation of the experimental treatment effects stemming from different study participation and differential reporting of outcomes across treatment arms. Finally, we re-consider the famous RAND estimate that the elasticity of medical spending with respect to its out-of-pocket price is -0.2, emphasizing the challenges associated with summarizing the experimental treatment effects from non-linear health insurance contracts using a single price elasticity. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aI13 - Health Insurance, Public and Private2Journal of Economic Literature class.1 aEinav, Liran.1 aFinkelstein, Amy.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w18642.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w1864241uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w18642